Back in Town...Heading Out Again

Whew! Sydney had a rough flight back -- she is really too big to sleep across one lap (mine) and the lady next to me did not seem thrilled with sitting next to a lady with a baby, AND it was turbulence from hell, so needless to say I am glad we are not flying again next weekend.

Whew! Glad to be home, we are getting Sydney back into her routine. However, during the trip she had a sudden onset of separation anxiety (probably because we left Daddy and Sissy at home to come here, and then I had her at Nana and Poppy's for a bit). I thought we were through the woods on that one, considering her age, but apparently not.

So after careful discernment, we have decided to pull her out of the preschool. She is really acting up and I think this has something to do with it. We hired a nanny named Ana to help us out a few hours a week (Sally is only going to school 2 mornings a week for summer camp) so we can get some work done and I think that will be good for Sydney as well. Plus, Andy and I can spend some time working with her since she is so eager to learn (colors, songs, how-to, etc)

She really likes to use the little potty, but she can't quite pull her pants up and down yet, so we are still in diapers, but asking her if she needs to go a few times throughout the day. No poop on the potty yet, but she is now telling us when she has pooped (assuming we can't alraedy tell!) so we can get her changed pretty quickly

Sally was quite good while we were away, she and Daddy had some bonding time, and she seems more mature to me, which is really fascinating. She has been quite good since we got home, and I missed her very much (so did Sydney). I think this is the longest the two of them have been apart since Sydney was born!

On Wednesday (a week from today) we leave for our first family road trip...more to come about that!

Getting Ready for our Trip to the Big Easy

Sydney and I are taking our first trip alone together -- this Thursday we are headed to New Orleans for Isabelle's christening.

Syd has a little cold, so we are holding the intention that she is all better before Thursday AM.

Meanwhile, I'm getting some business stuff squared away so I won't have to fool with any work-related stuff while we're there.

And we're all looking forward to seeing Miss Isabelle, and Ton-Ton and Aunt Kelly and Nana and Poppy and the whole gang. :-)

Sydney's List of Can-Dos

It's getting hard to keep up with Sydney's new "tricks" so I thought I would publish a summary of what she is doing these days.

She started going up and down the steps before she turned one, so she is a pro now. She can walk down the steps frontward, holding onto the rail bars. She can also climb a ladder, as long as there is at least a small platform at the top.

She can almost do a somersault -- give it another week, I suspect.

She can also do an assisted handstand.

Sydney can climb onto a chair, sofa, bed, etc., without assistance, and can get down from a ladder or chair on her own. She likes to sit in a small child's chair to watch a family movie with us.

Sydney feeds herself (has for awhile now) and is getting quite good with a fork. Still working on a spoon, but can do pretty well with something thick like oatmeal or pudding.

Sydney can attach the velcro on her tennis shoes by herself. Can take off her own sweater or hoodie, too.

Sydney's words:

Yes
No
Sissy
Wheeee!
Shoe (this one is REALLY helpful because she tells us if we're carrying her and a shoe drops off!)
Poo
Whoa!
Cow
"Keh" (for ketchup)
Cup
Hi
Bye-Bye
Mama
Dada
Meow (for kitty)
Moo (for cow)
Rrar-Rrar (for dog or animal she doesn't know what it says)
Roar! (for lion)
(smacking sound) for fish
Good girl
Nite-nite
Ball
"Pah-pah" (for potty)
Hot
Cold
Wind
Go
Love
Hug
Me
Milk
More
Uh-oh
Yum-yum
Ding-dong
Hello
What
Ow
Help
Hand (meaning "I want to wash my hands")
Nah-ah
I don't know
Yay!

Things she will do if you ask her:

Gimme a kiss
Blow kisses
Lay on your back
Roll over
Take off your shoes
Take off your bib
Help clean up
Put that away
Go get me a sippy cup
Hug your baby doll
Give me pats
Give me a hug
C'mon / C'mere
Ring the belly button (ding-dong)
Who's cute? (raises hand and says "me!")
Dance!
Go potty!

Body parts she can point to if you ask:

Head
Hair
Eyes
Ears
Nose
Cheek
Chin
Mouth
Teeth
Tongue
Forehead
Tummy
Belly button
Foot
Hand
Arm
Fingers
Leg

Sydney Starts Pre-School

Yes, I know she is only 17 months old. But the kid can already point to all her body parts when you name them (including all parts of her face), can mimic animal sounds, can climb a ladder with rungs, and is starting to potty train herself. Clearly, she's ready for some additional challenges outside of the home.

So she started today and had a great day. Worked on her animal noises, ate a hearty lunch, took a solid nap and played outside on the playground. Not a bad day! Overall disposition was "cheerful" (well, duh. That's Sydney in a nutshell)

Sally was quite good today while Sissy was away, even though mommy had some work to take care of.

Sally goes to school tomorrow (they are both on a 2-day per week schedule for now) and she is pretty excited. She likes going to "Sydney's school" while awaiting the time to start her new school after Labor Day.

Happy Mother's Day!

Happy Mother's Day to all the mothers and grandmothers and aunts out there.

We had a fabulous day here - Andy and the girls brought me a doughnut and flowers and juice (and LOTS of cards!) in bed, and then we all got dressed and went to brunch at a little Italian place we adore -- they were having a Mom's day brunch and it was delicious. There was this baked salmon dish with artichokes and capers that was TO DIE FOR. Yum.

Then we drove up to Denver to a little coffee shop to hear our friend's band play. Teh weather was picture-perfect, 68 degrees and sunny, just a little breeze. The band played outside and the girls ran around and danced and we chilled out with some frozen coffee drinks.

When we came home, both girls were ready for naps (fell asleep in the car on the way home) and Andy and I took advantage of the gorgeous weather and quiet household to acquire some large landscaping boulders for our front landscaping. I had fun making rock formations, and the girls woke up right before the ice cream man showed up (yeah!)

Then we had some pomegranat-inis and apple-tinis and made our phone calls to the family, which was really nice...then, as if in answer to an unspoken prayer, they BOTH went to bed very early, and we watched the finale and reunion show for Survivor Micronesia.

C'mon, a Survivor finale night on Mother's Day? Can it really get any sweeter than this?!?

Goodbye to Sally's Old School

Well, we decided rather abruptly to pull Sally out of her current school. Apparently the assistant teacher is not quite mature enough to handle a class while the regular teacher is out sick, and her decision to show a PG-rated Jim Carrey movie the other day ("well, I ran out of things to do before carline") was the final straw. As if I'm paying this ridiculous amount of money so my kid can watch a movie at school (and not even an age-appropriate one, no less!). Excuse me, this is not daycare people!

Bye-bye silly school. And I wondered last year why 4 of Sally's friends decided not to return to the school this year. I just couldn't get a straight answer out of any of them.

We figured out a couple of months ago that this school was not a good fit for us (even though we adore her primary teacher), and we had decided to move Sally to a different school next year. We were originally planning to let her finish out the month, but after this fiasco, we are gone-pecan baby!

So Sally is at Sydney's school for a couple of weeks until her new school has space for her.

I can't say I regret having her at the old school, because she did have a fabulous teacher who is really making great progress with her, and we are quite glad to have met her. Sally can now count to 40, recognize numerals up to 20, and is learning to write her letters. She likes to "read" to Sydney at home.

I suppose the school itself is not really all that important, but it's the teacher that makes the difference. That's why we're following her teacher to a different school!

And the new school is MUCH closer and MUCH more reasonably priced, which is definitely a bonus. It's only about 5 minutes from our house, which is GREAT. I also like that it's Montessori-based, but not strict Montessori, which I think can be a bit rigid.

Live Big 5K Walk: Sydney Wins Her First Race

We took the whole fam to participate in a 5k walk for a local fundraiser today.

It's called Live Big and it's a non-profit foundation that was started in memory of a little boy who was killed when he walked out into street traffic. His parents wanted to celebrate the memory of how he always wanted to "live big" so they host outdoor safety events and an annual walk.

Last year they had 300 participants at the 5k walk/run, and they more than doubled that this year. We entered with teh team name "We4Grants" (also our Geocaching team name) and we completed the race in just under 1 hour. Not bad considering Sally walked for about half a mile of that (the rest was spent in the double stroller) and we had to stop a couple of times with the kids. And did I mention half of the race was UPHILL?!?

But it was great exercise, and it was a beautiful day, and the kids loved it. Then we all had hot dogs and hung out at the park, listening to the DJ who was not bad.

There was a mini-walk (about 2 blanket-lengths) for toddlers and babies, and with just 3 applicants and 2 prizes, we figured our odds were pretty good, so we entered Sydney.

At the end of the furthest blanket, there was a stretch of pink streamer. Whoever crossed the streamer first was the winner.

We lined up the kids on one end, and the parents on the other to coax them forward. I hung with Syd until start time and Daddy enticed her with the GPS and his iPhone (she soooooo wants her own iPhone! She already knows how to slide her finger across the screen to unlock it, that sly boots)

When it was time to go, Sydney went straight for the iPhone but stopped cold when she got to the pink ribbon, like she was confused. When I told her to step over it, and she realized there was no electric force field around it, she stepped right over and won the race. Hooray!

And it was another 5 minutes (at least) before the second place tyke crossed the line. He was a chunky fellow, maybe 18 months? and easily distracted. The littlest one (maybe 15 mos?) kind of stood in the middle of the blanket, looking overwhelmed by the small crowd that had gathered. It looked like it was going to be a draw for second, but then the big boy crossed over and won 2nd place. The "race" continued until the youngest darling finally crossed the finish line, with some help from mom (who no doubt realized the game's organizer was not going to end the race until all were complete!)

Since the first place prize was a darling arrangement made of diapers (which we are hopefully on our way to phasing out...Andy is out picking up Pull-Ups and flushable wipes as I type this), we opted to snag the 2nd place prize for our first place starling -- a punch card (20 free visits) to the Castle Rock Recreation Center. Sure, we're already members, but now we can bring a friend with the kids for free, or bring someone who's in town visiting us.

Sally made new friends while we were picnicking and cheering for Sydney, and we all had a great day

(and NOBODY in our family got sunburned. Whew!)

Preschool and Potty Training

Well, Sydney may have been a late walker, but her development is in hyperdrive now.

She wants to learn to do EVERYTHING, so Andy and I decided it would be wise to put her in an early learning center. No feasible Montessori options for another year yet, so we tried out a day at KinderCare and the kid was a natural. (This was on Friday 4/25.)

She had some breakfast, played quite well with the other children, did a craft with stamps, ate a tuna sandwich and some strawberries for lunch, took a 2 hour nap (the teachers were quite impressed that all they did was put her lovey on her little cot and she climbed right up and napped -- they didn't even need to tell her what to do or help her up) and had the most wonderful time. And 5 hours was the perfect amount of time, because she was delighted to see Mommy arrive.

I asked her if she had a good time and she nodded her head.

Later that day, we were all in the car with Sally and Sally started singing (as usual), and Sydney started singing too. This was the first time we had heard her sing, so I asked her if she learned a song at school today and she nodded, and then started to sing. So cute!

So we start mid-May, and she will go 2 half-days per week. She is very excited and so are we!

What's more, she has been expressing an interest in the potty, and it seems like more than just curiosity. So today we asked her if she would like to learn to use the potty like we do, and she nodded enthusiastically.

So we tried once, but her diaper was wet, so I think she had just peed.

We tried again about an hour later (the next time one of us went, she followed us into the bathroom) and she peed in her little potty! She was so excited she started clapping, and so did we!

She went again later today, so we are definitely going to get her some pull-ups and start potty training.

Way to go Sydney!!